Well, thank goodness for that. Wouldn't want to die in a car crash with an untidy filesystem, just like Mama always said.

The file was reportedly named "snapshot_collision_airbag-deployment.tar", which indicates that the developers are able to know that this particular event is a terminal one. Is it really necessary to be mindful of a few GB of storage space on a device that will likely never again to record data for its host vehicle?

Whatever named the file knew it was a bad event, but that doesn't mean the routine to transmit an incident had a special case for this.

This is baffling. Those files are the most important information the car contains after an accident.

Let's not be naive, or deceptive, about a malpractice from a multi billion company owned by a multi billionaire.

They did not erase the original data, only the compiled file that was sent. That's just proper coding, clean up your temporary files!